Two thousand miles away from the Pacific surf and 35 years down the road of pop-music history, there’s a certain sound that still glows with purity and warmth. Every echo of its harmony still makes you want to sing along. Every throb of its rhythm still begs for dancing. The sound has conquered the world many times over, but today the band that created this California Dream is making it in the city the truckers call Guitar Town. One of the most enduring groups in the history of rock has found a home away from home in the Capital of Country.

The Beach Boys are gathered in the sleek control room of Masterfonics Studio in the heart of Nashville’s renowned Music Row district. The brilliant composer and arranger Jimmy Webb has just finished conducting an orchestration for “Caroline, No” and all are floating on its zephyrs of sound as they listen to the playback. Wives, children, business associates and friends mill around in an atmosphere of easy congeniality. In an adjacent room, TV crews, reporters and trade journalists have gathered to witness history in the making, to chronicle the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famers’ newest reincarnation.

But The Beach Boys are listening right now. Co-producers Brian Wilson and Joe Thomas suggest replaying vocals by some of the group’s new Nashville collaborators. “Don’t Worry Baby” fills the room with its serpentine melody and heart-swelling rhythm. Composer and arranger Brian Wilson, the genius who provided the soundtrack for a million teen fantasies, twirls in his chair and grins as the lustrous voice of Lorrie Morgan caresses his song.

One by one, the singing styles of Willie Nelson, T. Graham Brown, Ricky Van Shelton and Toby Keith come through the speakers. When Junior Brown rips into his “guit-steel” solo in the middle of “409,” grins and murmurs of affirmation are swapped around the room. Mike Love, the group’s famed frontman and lyricist, seems ready to break into a dance. Al Jardine and Bruce Johnston softly practice a few harmony details, effortlessly folding their sighs into the sound of each celebrity guest on tape.

The next day, The Beach Boys delight a Country Radio Seminar audience of music-business conventioneers by staging a surprise appearance at a James House show. The collaborative version of “Little Deuce Coupe” brings down the house and inaugurates a series of Beach Boys appearances in Music City that set the whole town talking.

Weeks later, country queen Tammy Wynette joins the fabled group in the studio for “In My Room,” a track slated for a second volume of Nashville collaborations. The California clan is so impressed with the deft sonic polishing by her bandleader/husband George Richey that he’s almost made an honorary Beach Boy on the spot. The glow of Tammy’s charisma is, as usual, mesmerizing.

In June, the country-rocking group Sawyer Brown electrifies the Grand Ole Opry House by teaming up with The Beach Boys on “I Get Around” to kick off the nationally telecast 1996 TNN/Music City News Awards. Toward the end of the same week, Collin Raye and honky tonker Doug Supernaw join the group at the Sound Check rehearsal studio on the Cumberland River shore to run through material for a live show. Carl Wilson, The Beach Boys’ longtime onstage musical leader and guiding spirit, expertly coaches an all-star combo of “A-Team” Music Row session players through its paces.

And when his lifelong bandmates join Carl in song, even the most jaded Nashville onlookers gasp a little. A few of those onlooking eyes get misty. The celestial voices of The Beach Boys wrap the room in wonder. A songwriter, a manager, then a roadie and a photographer, begin to sing along. Without even realizing it, every face present melts into a smile. Another inland audience has succumbed to the sound of the beach.

This has happened before. In fact it has been happening, over and over, for more than 30 years.

Brothers Brian, Carl and the late Dennis Wilson initially teamed up with cousin Mike Love and high school friend Al Jardine in 1962. Capitol Records believed that their odes to the California seaside were too regional to appeal to the national pop/rock audience. “Surfin’ Safari” and the massive 1963 hits “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and “Surfer Girl” were the first proof that The Beach Boys’ summer sound was universal.

“They were my first favorite group as a kid,” says Sawyer Brown’s Jim Scholten, “the first musical heroes I ever had. I idolized them.” Country star Doug Supernaw also began his musical life as a Beach Boys fanatic.

“409” (1962), “Shut Down” (1963), “Little Deuce Coupe” (1963) and “Fun, Fun, Fun” (1964) took another West Coast theme nationwide, turning a generation of young people into car-crazy kids. The Beach Boys gave youth its own special voice, creating an immortal songbook of innocence and celebration – “Be True To Your School” (1963), “I Get Around” (1964), “When I Grow Up To Be A Man” (1964), “Dance, Dance, Dance” (1964), “Help Me Rhonda” (1965) and “California Girls” (1965). But there was always a more contemplative side as well, typified by such tender pieces as “In My Room” (1963), “Don’t Worry Baby” (1964) and “God Only Knows” (1966).

“To me, Beach-Boys music means youth,” says Lorrie Morgan, “and who doesn’t long for the Fountain of Youth? I grew up knowing all of this music and loving it. The Beach Boys were about the American people.”

Virtually every American who grew up in those years can cite a personal Beach Boys favorite, whether it’s 1964’s “Wendy” or “Little Honda,” 1965’s “California Girls or “Help Me Rhonda,” or 1966’s “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” or “Barbara Ann.” All major hits of the day, they seemed so much a part of that time and place that few believed such songs would endure.

But succeeding generations have not only embraced these tunes, they’ve elevated them to the status of American classics. Listeners far too young to remember The Beach Boys as high school grads in matching striped summer shirts have claimed this music as their own.

“Almost ever since I’ve been aware of music, I’ve been aware of The Beach Boys,” says Collin Raye. “For a non-Californian, I bet I love The Beach Boys more than anybody. I worked for five years in the casinos of Nevada. The thing that got us booked was that I could do a Beach Boys medley. I dressed like Mike Love, with a baseball cap and a Hawaiian shirt. I got a lot of jobs that way.”

As America matured, so did the sound. “Good Vibrations” (1966) and “Heroes And Villains” (1967) now stand alongside the great monuments of “progressive rock” of the ‘60s. The Beach Boys proved that just plain fun could be hip when “Darlin’” hit the charts in 1967, “Do It Again” in 1968 and “I Can Hear Music” in 1969. “All Summer Long” reminded the world that The Beach Boys perfectly captured youth and freedom when it became the closing-titles theme of 1973’s blockbuster movie American Graffiti. The sophisticated, layered texture of “Sail On Sailor” gave it two runs on the pop charts, in 1973 and 1975. In 1976 “Rock and Roll Music” took the group and its listeners back to the heady days of rock’s birth.

This year’s Nashville experience is not without precedent. Over the decades The Beach Boys sound has meshed with a surprising variety of musical contexts, from symphony and ballet to jazz and new-age. There have been some notable collaborations along the way that illustrate just how supple the group’s style can be – “The Monkey’s Uncle” with Annette in 1965, “Wishing You Were Here” with Chicago and “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” with Elton John in 1974, “California Girls” with David Lee Roth in 1985 and “Wipeout” with The Fat Boys in 1987 are just a few examples. The Beach Boys shifted to a Caribbean mode on the soundtrack of Cocktail in 1988, bringing it yet another No. 1 smash, “Kokomo.”

But could The Beach Boys “go country?”

Perhaps there have been hints all along that Nashville was in their future. Brian and Carl recall that Nashville’s Everly Brothers were an early vocal inspiration. One of The Beach Boys’ biggest hits was their arrangement of the traditional folk song “Sloop John B” in 1966. The Southern folk standard “Cottonfields” became a worldwide smash for the group in 1970. Prior to Bruce Johnston, who joined the band in 1965, The Beach Boys employed future country great Glen Campbell. Country stylist T.G. Sheppard used to be an opening act on Beach Boys tours. Among the many “surf rock” hits inspired by them was 1964’s “Little G.T.O.” by Nashville’s Ronny & The Daytonas.

Carl Wilson produced the South African group Flame for Nashville’s Starday/King label in 1970; and that group provided Blondie Chaplin and Ricky Fataar to The Beach Boys membership. In 1985 Carl began traveling to Tennessee to co-write songs with Music City’s Robert Johnson. Fred Vail, the group’s California concert promoter, became a Nashville resident years ago, as did Henry Gross, whose 1976 hit “Shannon” was a direct homage to The Beach Boys’ sound.

But whether The Beach Boys had ever made the pilgrimage to Music City or not, their success there was written in the stars. For beauty isn’t bound by state or nationality. And every time these five men breathe as one in harmony, beauty is in the air.

The inspiring thing is hearing that the complex, multi-part chords they sing are pitch-perfect every time, that live and unamplified The Beach Boys really do sound like a choir of sun-splashed angels. They’re not the product of studio tape-recorder wizardry; they really do sing that way – full bodied and robust, a complete chorale instantly bursting forth at the wave of Carl’s hand or a nod of Mike’s head.

Many have tried but none can duplicate that singular, exquisite vocal harmony. Nothing has ever approached the intricacy of that wind-swept chorus, the shimmering gloss of those pocket symphonies and mini madrigals or the legacy of those perfect summer anthems. No one can recreate the immaculate simplicity of their sparkling, wave-blessed vision.

They may have invented California rock; they may be the most influential vocal group in American music history; they may stand as one of the biggest selling musical acts of all time; they may carry a pop legend larger than any other. But in Nashville, The Beach Boys were merely musicians meeting their peers.

“I’ve always been so impressed when I watch the Grand Ole Opry,” Carl said softly. “Those guys just walk up to the microphone, plug in and play. No fooling around. No sound effects, and it just sounds incredible. They just open their mouths and out it comes. This is a town full of immense talent.”

As dazzling, epic and inspired a body of work as the group had behind it, the Nashville sessions seemed to refresh and stimulate The Beach Boys. It was almost though an ocean breeze had kissed their brows for the very first time.

From the other side, the Nashville participants were enormously eager to please. Faced with one of the most legendary acts in pop annals, many of the country performers became giddy with delight, awestruck fans asking for autographs and snapshots.

For both the group and its country collaborators, the participation of Brian Wilson was a special thrill. “It’s a treat for us and everybody else to have him there,” Carl told one Nashville reporter. “He gets to see people enjoying the stuff that he created. And in some ways it makes us a little bit more ‘awake.’ It has a slightly different feel to it.”

In reflection, these collaborations make sublime sense. Country music is an American soundtrack, the soul of the everyday, the poetry of the common man. Beach Boys music is quintessentially American, too, the chronicle of our leisure, our innocence, our youth, our optimism. One tells of the cares and pleasures of Middle America; the other brings us the joys and uncertainties of the West Coast. Both are universal expressions of who we are as a People.

Outside, it’s the middle of the day in Middle America, a Southern summer in full bloom. Inside, it’s another day in the Nashville music business. In a corner of a Nashville rehearsal hall, Carl Wilson is doing vocal warm-ups. Brian is noodling at the piano and pacing the stage. Mike Love and Bruce Johnston arrive and begin chatting with their Nashville collaborators. Al Jardine drifts in and without instruction each Beach Boy takes his place automatically at the row of microphones on the rehearsal stage.

The next day, nearly 20,000 shrieking fans greet The Beach Boys and their country cousins at a mammoth concert at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds. These are people who have gathered to celebrate country music’s annual Fan Fair festival. Most have probably never surfed, driven a “woody,” worn a “baggie,” raced a dragster or gone skateboarding. It doesn’t matter. Brian, Mike, Al, Bruce and Carl are part of their collective heart, living icons of American music who transcend time, age and geography.

For the next two hours, we are in Anywhere, U.S.A., tossing beach balls and dancing ecstatically in the golden sunshine. Once again, the sound of the surf has crashed into the heartland and bathed it in melody.

Thanks to Eddie Haddad for the great idea; Dan Wojcik for introducing us to Joe Thomas; our manager Elliott Lott and The Beach Boys management team of Joel Gast, Mary-Lynn Lott and Chris Baker; Evelyn Shriver for all her strength, knowledge and tenacity; Jill Wylly and the staff at Evelyn Shriver Public Relations; Jim Zumwalt for both his legal counsel and circus high-wire act – you’re truly a deal maker; Orville Almon; Ross Schwartz; everyone at Platinum Entertainment, River North Nashville and PolyGram Group Distribution; Paul Stanley and his staff at PS Productions; Herky Williams for finding Willie in the heartland; Joanna Basile for coordinating all of our travels; Lisa Roy at Studio A for doing a seamless job of organizing everyone; Cindy Sutton at Masterfonics; Mickey Raphael; Ensoniq; Audio Technica; all our friends and families …and of course, Mr. Happy.

Special thanks to Hollis Taggart Galleries and Morton Kaish for allowing us to use one of the unique and magnificent paintings from his “Stars and Stripes” collection.

The Beach Boys and Joe Thomas would like to thank all of the incredible artists for your contribution and friendship. We enjoyed every minute with all of you. Each experience was unique, creative and an enormous amount of fun! From Willie Nelson, who has been an inspiration throughout the years and helped really kick off this project; to Jimmy Webb, whose gem-like string creations and enrichment of American music we would truly like to acknowledge. We couldn’t have done it without each and every one of you.

A very special thank you to Matt Jardine for always coming through for the group.

A special thank you goes out to the country music community for making us feel so welcome. We’d also like to thank all of the artists’ management and labels for their generosity in allowing so many great voices to participate and contribute to this project. And we won’t forget the CMA for their invitation to debut our music for the fans at Fan Fair ‘96. It sure was fun in the sun!!!